Sunday, 25 January 2015

Today marks the third anniversary of At The Back and as is
now tradition, it’s time for my Top 10 films of the last year. As always I
choose this date in late January to try and include as many of the year’s
awards frontrunners as I can but with UK release dates still lagging behind the
US, some will be included next year (if they make the list). This year’s list
includes at least one Oscar winner from last year for this very reason.

It’s been over six months since I’ve written a film review
on this site and in that time I’ve changed jobs, moved city and bought a
dragon. I’ve still been watching as much as I can but missed more important
releases in 2014 than I have in several years. For instance I didn’t get to see
Gone Girl, a film which is creeping
into many lists I’ve read. Other omissions include American Sniper, Two Days, One Night, Ida and Leviathan. A film I
did see which I expected would make my list was Foxcatcher. I haven’t been as disappointed by a film since the
first Hobbit. For me it lacked
tension throughout and couldn’t be saved by some admittedly fantastic performances.

Films which just missed out included the feel good Pride, a terrific David and Goliath
struggle in which two unlikely groups join forces in order to battle a much
stronger enemy. The Imitation Game
featured a stand out central performance from Benedict Cumberbatch and an under
told story while The Theory of Everything
provided us with what was in my opinion the greatest performance of the year in
the form of Eddie Redmayne’s Stephen Hawking. Under the Skin was a dark and chilling film which stayed with me
for a long time while Lego documentary Brick
by Brick came at the opposite end of the spectrum, giving me perhaps my
most fun cinema experience of the entire year.

10. Locke (dir. Steven Knight)

One of the simplest films I saw all year and certainly one
of the cheapest, this $2 million movie is set almost entirely within the
confines of one car. It follows a single character played superbly by the ever
impressive Tom Hardy as he travels along a British motorway one evening. During
the journey which is shot in real time, Locke’s life falls apart without the
need for crashes, chases or anything else one associates with cars and the
movies. Hardy’s subtle performance keeps the audience gripped as his inner
turmoil is beautifully restrained within Hardy’s mannered execution.

Saturday, 26 July 2014

It's been some time since I wrote anything film related but a tweet overnight from Shane at Film Actually invited me to participate in a blogathon started by Myfilmviews called 6 Degrees of Separation. The rules are simple. Each participant must connect one
actor/actress/director/movie to another actor/actress/director/movie in
six connections or less. Have a look at what the previous participants have done.

Shane presented me the the task of connecting a director synonymous for his fight against racism with a film that is most famous for it - Spike Lee to The Birth of a Nation. So, here it is.

1. In 2002, Spike Lee directed 25th Hour starring Edward Norton.

2. A year earlier Edward Norton appeared in the underrated The Score with Robert De Niro.

3. Robert De Niro starred in Martin Scorsese's 1991 remake of Cape Fear in which Robert Mitchum, who starred in the original, had a small role. 4. Back in 1955, Robert Mitchum appeared in The Night of the Hunter with Lillian Gish.5. Lillian Gish was a darling of the silent era and acted in the controversial the Birth of a Nation.

I'm passing the baton to Jason of the excellent Life Vs Film and tasking him with getting from The Birth of a Nation to Daniel Brühl. Good luck.

Monday, 19 May 2014

The Two Faces of January is an interesting little film written and
directed by Hossein Amini, a man best known for penning the script of Drive. Here Amini delivers another
taught script set in early 1960s Greece. American tour guide and
part time swindler Rydal (Oscar Isaac) gives tours to unsuspecting travellers
in the Greek capital Athens and one day comes across an American couple with
whom he strikes up conversation and a brief friendship. The tour guide is
charmed by the couple and drawn to their wealth and beauty but when it becomes
apparent that the couple aren’t quite as well refined and put together as they
first appear, Rydal helps them to evade those hunting them before becoming
embroiled in their strange and murky circumstances.

There were two things that
attracted me to this movie. The first was the name Amini. I was curious to see
the screenwriter’s directorial debut and was interested in his script. The
second factor was Viggo Mortensen. At this stage in the actor’s career I feel
as though I can pretty much trust that if he’s agreed to be in it, it will be
good enough to see. Mortensen does indeed impress and his choice of role is
once again solid. The movie is about surface and sheen and the attraction that
bright and beautiful things hold while under the surface bubbles something more
sinister. There’s an uneasy feeling which envelops the film and it stabs
through the false surface from time to time in a wonderfully calm but out of
control manner.

Sixty years after his debut
screen appearance, Godzilla is back on our screens in his second American
guise. For anyone who remembers the 1998 Roland Emmerich version, this news may
legitimately cause trepidation. My interest in the picture came about when I
heard that the new film was to be directed by second time director Gareth
Edwards. For nearly half a decade since Edwards’ first film, I’ve been telling
anyone I can get my hands on to watch his film Monsters. That movie was outstanding; an ultra low budget
monster-thinker which Edwards wrote, directed, shot and edited himself besides
doing all of the FX work in his bedroom. In comparison to that movie, Godzilla is a let down.

Things start well with an
interesting and attractive titles sequence which gives a slight spin on the
traditional Godzilla back story. The film postulates that the atomic tests of
the 1950s were in fact not tests at all but an elaborate attempt to destroy the
gigantic titular beast. Fast forward several decades and we find Joe Brody
(Bryan Cranston) hard at work as the supervisor of a Japanese Nuclear Power
Plant. Brody is concerned by strange seismic patterns which are unlike any
earthquake he’s seen before. In fact he’s convinced there are no earthquakes at
all.

Sunday, 18 May 2014

A beautiful if underwhelming
film, Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief
marked the director’s third and final picture starring Grace Kelly. Joining the
actress is another actor in his third Hitchcock movie, Carey Grant. Grant plays
John Robie, a once jewel thief turned French Resistance fighter who now
retired, tends to his vineyards high above the Côte d'Azur. When a series of
robberies which display Robie’s hallmarks are committed, the police come
looking for the man known as ‘The Cat’ and in order to clear his name, he gets
hold of a list of potential targets in the hope of out witting and out
manoeuvring the real thief. First on the list are Mrs. Stevens (Jessie Royce
Landis) and her daughter Francie (Kelly).

To Catch a Thief lacks some of the dramatic tension and edge of the
seat thrills of Hitchcock’s finest films but what it lacks in tautness, it
makes up for in other ways. Hitchcock cleverly gets passed the Hays/Breen
censors with some fantastic sexual innuendo and half hidden imagery. The
romantic side of the plot is much more developed than the dramatic side and
Hitch wows his audience with sexual fireworks (literally) and a John Michael
Hays script which while leaving little to the imagination, somehow feels clean
and moral. Coupled with the spectacular beauty on display, this is a movie
which is worth investing time in.

Sunday, 9 February 2014

It’s not often that I finish an
Alfred Hitchcock picture unable to take something away from it but I feel like
I wasted my time with The Trouble with
Harry. A departure from the type of mystery that made his name, this is a
black comedy with thriller elements. Set during a crisp autumn in Vermont, a retired sea
captain discovers the recently deceased body of a man while out hunting on a
hill. Believing to be responsible for his death, the captain attempts to hide
the body but various passers by happen upon it and react in unusual ways. It
turns out that several people believe themselves responsible and the small
community at the bottom of the hill attempt to discover exactly what happened
to the man and what to do next.

The use of the body, which turns
out to be that of the titular character, is a clever Macguffin which is used to
unite two couples in what turns out to be a romantic black comedy. Ordinarily
when a Hitchcock movie opens on a corpse, you’d be expecting a whodunit but here
that isn’t important to the director. For me, that’s one of the problems. I
wanted more excitement and intrigue from the film. Although billed as a comedy,
I didn’t laugh once and was barely amused. The film just washed over me with a
plot that didn’t grab me in the slightest. More disappointing than the plot is
the cast who are as wooden as the corpse they attempt to cover up.

Tuesday, 4 February 2014

A few days ago I re-watched Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained and began thinking about how highly I've rated the vast majority of his films. I wondered exactly what ratings I'd given his movies so went through my reviews and calculated the average, thus combining two things I love; movies and statistics (I'm fun, I know). I then replicated this with Charlie Chaplin, the man who I consider to be my favourite film maker. Seeing as I'd already done these two, I thought I might as well go through my entire blog and work out the mean average mark I'd given directors. To be fair, I've created two categories, one for directors for whom I've reviewed more than three films and one group for those directors for whom I've reviewed exactly three films. Anything less than that has been ignored. The results surprised me as many of the directors who I consider my favourites, rank lower than those who I'd consider less important to me. Below are the two lists.

Park Chan-wook. 9.3 from five films. Park ranks as my favourite director in terms of average and is also amongst my favourites generally. His Oldboy is one of my favourite films of all time and his first American movie, Stoker, also impressed me last year, making my Top 10 of 2013 list.

Billy Wilder. 8.0 from four films. Twelve months ago I'd never seen a Billy Wilder film but now I count some of his films amongst my favourites. I was blown away by Sunset Boulevard and The Apartment and his average would have been much higher if I'd enjoyed Sabrina more. I can't wait to see more of his movies.

Quentin Tarantino 7.8 from ten films. There is only one Tarantino film which I haven't loved and if it wasn't for Death Proof, his average would probably be over 8. Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are 10/10 films for me.

Werner Herzog 7.6 from eight films. Had I split Herzog's documentaries and features, the result here would have been quite different. I much prefer the likes of Encounters at the End of the World to Aguirre.

Alfred Hitchcock 7.5 from thirteen films. I was a late convert to Hitchcock and with only thirteen films reviewed, I still have some way to go. I'm a bit surprised that my average is just 7.5 as I've rated Rope, Shadow of a Doubt and Psycho extremely highly. His average is let down by the likes of North by Northwest and The Man Who Knew Too Much. Martin Scorsese 7.4 from seven films. I'd class Scorsese as my favourite film director of all time so to be at just 7.4 is a little misleading. This is because I'm currently reviewing his films in order (the recent Wolf of Wall Street aside). Once the likes of Goodfellas and Raging Bull have been reviewed, his average will shoot right up.Peter Jackson 7.3 from four films. I think The Lord of the Rings trilogy was brilliant but wasn't so keen on the first Hobbit and although the second was better, I'm yet to review it.Steven Spielberg 7.2 from ten films. Generally speaking, the more recent the Spielberg film, the lower I'll have rated it. This wasn't the case with Lincoln but Tintin is no Schindler's List.Ridley Scott 7.0 from five films.Alien is an outstanding movie but I'm not huge Blade Runner fan. David Cronenberg 6.9 from eight films. I have a love/hate relationship with David Cronenberg. The Fly I love. Crash I hate. A Dangerous Method I love. A History of Violence I, well don't hate but don't love either.Kim Ji-woon 6.8 from four films. Korea's Kim has made some incredible movies, perhaps none more so than I Saw the Devil. His American début, The Last Stand was a big let down but was at least directed with aplomb.Charlie Chaplin 6.7 from forty-five films. I've reviewed more Chaplin films than most of the other names on this list combined but I find him languishing with just a 6.7 average. Although I love the guy more than any other man should love a man, some of his early films are poor, even to a huge Chaplin fan. The Kid, The Circus and City Lights are three of my favourite films however. Sam Raimi 6.5 from six films. I loved Evil Dead when I saw it for the first time last year but I'm no huge fan of the Spider-Man trilogy and didn't enjoy Oz the Great and Powerful.Steven Soderbergh 6.0 from four films. I thought that Side Effects was a good film but I'm not usually excited by a new Soderbergh movie.Lars von Trier 5.5 from four films. Von Trier is a fascinating director whose films infuriate me. The 8/10 I gaveAntichrist shows how poorly I've marked his other movies.I've only reviewed three of the following directors movies.Steve McQueen - 9.0Michel Hazanavicius - 8.7John Lasseter - 8.7Christopher Nolan - 8.7Sidney Lumet - 8.3Wim Wenders - 8.3The Coen Brothers - 8.0Paul Thomas Anderson - 7.7Shane Meadows - 7.0Tim Burton - 6.7Guillermo del Toro - 6.3Paul Verhoeven - 6.3Ivan Reitman - 6.0James Whale - 6.0Judd Apatow - 5.7Tony Scott - 4.7

Saturday, 1 February 2014

Last summer, the film After Earth was labelled as rubbish by
the vast majority of critics. They were all wrong, it’s much worse than that. After Earth came from a story idea by
Will Smith which was fleshed out into a feature length screenplay by M. Night
Shyamalan and Gary Whitta. The movie was directed by Shyamalan and was produced
by and starred Will Smith and his son Jaden. The film gives its audience so
little to enjoy that it’s almost offensive and provides none of the action or
comedy that we have come to expect from a Will Smith fronted movie.

Set in the distant future,
humanity now resides on the planet Nova Prime with the Earth abandoned. A
thousand years after their arrival on their new home, the planet is invaded by
aliens (irony alert) who wish to destroy our species and conquer the planet.
Their primary weapon is the Ursa; a large, blind predator that is able to smell
human fear. One man, General Cypher Raige (Will Smith) has the ability to
‘ghost’ – be free of fear and as such invisible to the Ursa. His son Kitai
(Jaden Smith) is a Ranger Cadet who has hopes of replicating his father’s
talents. The two are somewhat estranged but Cypher takes his son on a training
mission which inadvertently crash lands on Earth, home to numerous deadly
creatures as well as an Ursa on the loose.

Friday, 24 January 2014

January 25th 2014 marks the second birthday of this blog and following on from last year, I've again chosen the day before this anniversary as the day to post my Top 10 films of the previous year. The extra month from December has given me the chance to catch up on some of the cinematic releases I missed earlier in the year as well as see some of this year's crop of Oscar nominated films. I saw a lot fewer films in 2013 than in 2012, partly thanks to a new job and partly because of a mid year blip during which I briefly lost the love of writing and subsequently watched fewer movies. Nevertheless I saw a total of 271 films of which 94 were eligible to be included on this list. (Last year's numbers were 391 & 100). To be included, I had to see a film that was released in UK cinemas between 25/01/13 and 24/01/14. Because of the slightly odd timing for an end of year list and crappy cinema release dates in the UK, a few of last year's Oscar nominated films were eligible for this list and films such as Her, Dallas Buyers Club and Inside Llewn Davis, which haven't been released yet cannot be included. The films below begin at my 10th favourite of the year, progressing to my favourite and I've also included my girlfriend's top 5 for a female/weirdo perspective. There's no bottom 5 this year because I didn't see enough of the truly awful films. As always, click on a film's title for a full review (if I wrote one).

10. Rush. As a huge Formula One fan I had my doubts about an American director taking on one of the sport's most fierce rivalries but Ron Howard captured the two personalities of Hunt and Lauda brilliantly. He also captured the speed, danger and to some extent noise associated with the sport as well as the grease and glamour that accompanies it. As a fan of the sport, I felt that the film stayed true to the routes of the story yet entertained and my girlfriend was enraptured by the movie as much as I was despite only enjoying the sport for Jenson Button's face. The movie looks great and sounds incredible while it allowed one of my favourite actors, Daniel Bruhl to give a fantastic performance that helped him reach a larger audience than ever before.

Friday, 27 December 2013

As my second year of film blogging draws to a close, I thought today was a good day to look back on some of the best films I've seen this year. Ahead of my 'Best of 2013' list which I'll publish in late January on my blog's two year anniversary, the list below is of the top ten 'new to me' films of the year. The list is taken from all of the films I've seen this year for the first time which weren't released in 2013.

Although I've seen a lot fewer films this year than last (278 as of 27th December, compared to over 365 at the same point in 2012), I believe that this list features comparatively better films than last year's.

10. Wings 1927. The first winner of what became Best Picture at the Oscars, Wings is a romantic drama that stands the test of time. Engaging leads and technical wizardry made it feel fresher and easier to watch than many films from the same period. Clara Bow's performance and the aerial photography are amongst the many highlights of this late period silent feature.

Wednesday, 27 November 2013

Sometimes it only takes a few
frames to realise that you’re in for a treat. This was the case for me with
Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 masterpiece The
Passion of Joan of Arc. It is however a film that I’d put off watching for
a long time. Despite my interest in silent cinema and all the great things I’d read
and heard, there was something about what little I knew of the film that put me
off. Perhaps it was the subject matter (more on that later) or the idea that it
would be a depressing and/or dull watch but either way it took a good five
years from my first whiff of the film to actually sitting down to watch it.
What a silly boy I was for those five years. Like many other renowned films
that I’d put off viewing it is of course a superb movie that features some of
the best acting, editing and camera placement I’ve ever seen.

The film tells of the
imprisonment, trial and (spoiler) execution of Joan of Arc (Noah’s wife) who
claimed divine guidance and lead France to several important military victories
during the Hundred Year’s War before being captured by the English and tried
for heresy, all by the age of nineteen. The film draws on the five hundred year
old transcripts of the trial and indeed original documents form the basis of the
script.

Wednesday, 4 September 2013

Rush, the latest offering from director Ron Howard, is an
exhilarating and dramatic biographical action movie set in the glamorous world
of the 1970s Formula One driver. Being a fairly faithful retelling of true
events, the movie focuses on the careers of and rivalry between Austria’s Nikki
Laura (Daniel Bruhl) and Britain’s James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) in the mid
1970s during which the pair were the cream of the motor racing world. Though
the movie begins in 1970, the main thrux of the plot is the 1976 F1 season
during which the pair’s rivalry and willingness to put themselves in the path
of danger reached an all time high before the season reached a dramatic climax
in Japan.

I need to mention very early on
that personally I’m a huge fan of Formula One and have only missed around three
races since my first in 1994. I love the history, the strategy and the
technology of the sport and would rank it amongst my biggest passions. Because
of this I was worried that my judgement of the film would be clouded but I’m
confident that the film is good enough that my love of its backdrop hasn’t
affected my enjoyment. In many ways the movie reminded me of the sublime BAFTA
award winning documentary Senna in
that although both movies are about F1 and F1 drivers, they could be about
anything. It’s the story and characters who make both films great. They could
be set within any discipline.

Monday, 2 September 2013

I stopped reviewing every film I watch towards the end of July and have gone from 30+ to (last month) four reviews a month. While I haven't really missed writing about the movies I've seen, I wanted to make sure I at least wrote something about every single one so that I could keep some sort of fluidity in my blog. So here are my very brief opinions of the films I've seen since I stopped reviewing everything.

July

Rebel Without a Cause

James Dean can’t play a teen. Great acting, interesting,
super cool. 8/10

Maniac

Better than the average slasher. Interesting. Far too
grizzly for me. 5/10

Double Indemnity

Quintessential Noir. Beautifully made, gripping. 8/10

Frances
Ha

A cross between French New Wave and Woody Allen. Annoying at
first but I warmed to it. It made me want to live the BoHo life. 7/10

Wednesday, 14 August 2013

Man with a Movie Camera is a 1929 experimental documentary film by
Dziga Vertov which upon watching for the first time earlier this week,
instantly entered into my top ten films of all time. The film contains no plot,
characters or actors and its only discernible arc is the depiction of the
passing of a day in Soviet Russia. It captures the essence of life in 1920s Russia thanks
to over 1,700 shots and scenes of everyday life as well as the life of machines
and industry. The film is famed now, as it was on its initial release, for its
revolutionary and still bold editing and filming style. It’s difficult to put
into words the wonders contained within this hour and seven minute avant-garde
piece but I hope that my brief description will attract new people to it.

The film opens on one of the more
surreal shots which pepper the film in amongst the more traditional fare. We
see a cameraman setting up his tripod on top of a giant camera which forms the
ground upon which he stands. This is the first of many examples of double
exposure used in the film and the camera trickery extends to the boundaries of
what was possible in the late 1920s over the next hour. I remember watching
Buster Keaton’s 1924 movie Sherlock, Jr
recently and being enamoured with his mastery of camera slight of hand but
Keaton’s noble efforts look like potato prints to Vertov’s Mona Lisa.

Sunday, 11 August 2013

Sharknado doesn’t deserve a full review. At a time when I’m only
writing reviews for about one film in eight that I watch, I’m not going to
spend too much time dissecting the finer points of the plot, acting and
direction of this film. The movie is the latest in a long line of terrible
B-Movies commissioned by The Syfy Channel and made by The Asylum film studio.
The films appear to be title first, plot second affairs which owe a great debt
to the B-Movie classics of the 1950s and 60s but lack their antiquated cousins’
charm and ideas. As I can’t be bothered discussing the film in depth I’m just
going to write some sentences that come into my head when I think about this
‘film’. In honour of the movie they will make little sense and won’t interest you

It’s rubbish.

The action begins with characters surfing on a beach without
waves.

Different beaches are used from shot to shot.

In one early scene, it’s obvious that a pod of dolphins are
being filmed instead of sharks.

Something is happening in Hollywood. Something
which isn’t new but is becoming more apparent with each passing year. Studios
are throwing vast sums of money at films in the hope that the sheer amount of
razzmatazz on screen, couple with stars and overblown effects will prize people
from their sofas and towards the cinema. The problem with this is that the
films are becoming ever more formulaic and uninspiring as studios attempt to
attract the maximum number of people to their films. It’s the same with most
art forms that the more broad you make your product, the less exciting and
unique it will be. Mumford and Sons
might outsell Goat but only one of
those bands sound like a Saturday night pub band that got too big for their
cowboy boots. When I think of the studios that are producing the type of big
budget, low risk films I’m discussing here, the one that springs to mind first
is Disney.

Disney obviously have a tradition
of making family movies and as such you aren’t expecting gore or thrilling
twists but they’ve managed to entertain generations of people simultaneously
for decades while maintaining their wholesome image. They also have a strong
tradition of borrowing stories from other sources but appear to be on a run at
the moment of producing the blandest of films which are amongst the most
expensive in history. Alice in Wonderland,
Oz the Great and Powerful, John Carter and now The Lone Ranger are all films which make use of established, much
loved characters in films which Disney have sucked all the life and fun out of.
The problem they’re really facing though is that they’re no longer guaranteed
$600 million if they plough $250 million into a movie and not only that, the
films themselves are dull and don’t even warrant a second viewing.

Tuesday, 6 August 2013

Belleville Rendez-vous, known as The Triplets of Belleville outside of my
native United Kingdom,
is a 2003 Oscar nominated animated feature, written and directed by the
mastermind behind the similarly styled 2010 Oscar nominated The Illusionist. The film tells the
surrealist story of a doting grandma who trains her grandson to compete in the
Tour de France before he is kidnapped by the mob. Determined to return him to
his native France, she
tracks him to Belleville (modelled on New York City) where she
and her obese dog befriend the Belleville Triplets, a formerly popular music
hall act.

As well as reminding me of
director Sylvain Chomet’s quite and masterful feature, The Illusionist, the animation is also reminiscent of classic Disney.
The still backdrops and wildly grotesque characters remain faithful to the
animation found in the likes of Dumbo
or Pinocchio but are darker and drawn
with the animator’s tongue firmly in cheek. The animation also displays modern
touches but these are counteracted by the wonderfully realised mid twentieth
century setting. There are even flairs of psychedelia present and side
characters such as an overly foppish waiter and henchmen who seem conjoined at
their ridiculously overgrown shoulders wouldn’t look out of place in a dehydrated Yellow Submarine.The surrealist nature of the animation also
extends beyond the character and occasionally creeps into inanimate objects too
where it is befitting of the plot.

Thursday, 25 July 2013

Dead Man’s Shoes is a psychological revenge thriller, co-written
and directed by the toast of the British critical community, Shane Meadows.
Writing with Paul Fraser and Paddy Considine, who also stars, the film focuses
on the return to a small northern town of an ex-soldier who reappears after his
little brother is humiliated by a group of local drug dealers. The film opens
with little back story and reveals itself through the use of grainy, black and
white flashbacks, building a picture of the events which lead up to the current
plot as it progresses in ever more violent and sadistic ways. It saves its
biggest and best reveal until close to the conclusion in a feat of wonderful
storytelling which put a delicious cherry on top of an already appealing
cinematic cake.

Although Shane Meadows is
considered to be one of the brightest talents in UK cinema, I’ve never really found
myself that blown away by his films. I can appreciate his style and especially
the way in which he gets his films made but they’ve never done anything for me.
This changed with Dead Man’s Shoes
and instantly became my favourite film from a director I hadn’t really got
until now. Not only do I think it’s one of Meadows’ best but I’m struggling to
think of a better independent British film from the past decade too.

Wednesday, 24 July 2013

Having dipped my toe into the
murky waters of the French New Wave with Breathless last week, I’m now ankle deep but the water is no clearer. I enjoy exploring
new cinematic avenues, whether it be silent comedy, Italian horror or Korean
thrillers but I’ve never had so much difficulty in expressing myself with the
written word as I’m having while trying to compose my thoughts about the films
of Jean-Luc Godard. My Life to Live
or Vivre sa vie in its original
French is a film in twelve chapters about a young Parisian woman who dreams of
becoming an actress but is drawn into prostitution when money becomes ever more
illusive. Anna Karina, Godard’s then wife, stars in the central role and puts
in a mesmerising performance in a film which I struggled to enjoy but couldn’t
take my eyes off.

From what little I’ve seen of
Godard’s canon, I think it’s fair to say that he’s a director with an eye for
beauty. The images he crates are sumptuous and filled with splendour despite
the slightly crinkled, low budget style of film making in which he partakes. Breathlesswas amongst the best looking
films I’ve seen while My Life to Live
exerts its beauty in a steadier, more measured manner, lingering on beauty
rather than allowing it to rush by. At the centre of all this is Anna Karina
herself, a woman whose eyes flash at the screen in such a way as to make her
audience melt.

Tuesday, 23 July 2013

“Buongiornoprincipessa!” Two simple
words that bought a huge smile to my face during a film which has more
emotional peaks and troughs than a very emotionally peaky troughy thing. Life is Beautiful or La vita è bella in its original Italian
is a passionate and multi award winning comedy-drama set in Italy during
The Second World War. Its dark themes are counterbalanced with some delightful
comedy and a sweet story about a man trying to protect his young son from the
harsh realities of the war. Italian Jew Guido (Roberto Benigni – also director)
is a wildly imaginative and romantic soul who woos a local woman in amusing and
inventive ways. Fast forward a few years and Guido and his wife Dora (Nicoletta
Braschi) have a cute little boy called Joshua (Giorgio Cantarini). When Guido
and Joshua are taken to a work camp by the Germans, Guido puts in tireless
effort to hide the truth from his son, telling him that they are playing a game
for points in which the winning team will win a real life tank.

Life is Beautiful really is beautiful in of itself. It’s one of the
sweetest films I’ve seen and is amongst many people’s (including my Dad’s and
girlfriend’s) favourite films of all time. Not only is it a good-natured story
but it’s also very bold. Upon its initial release it faced some criticism for
making light of the Holocaust but personally I don’t think it does anything to mock
that horrific event or undermine the suffering of the millions who had to
endure abysmal treatment under the Nazis and their collaborators. Instead it
displays the triumph of human spirit and the deep love of a father for going to
great lengths to protect his son.